OnceUponALegend- Well, as much as I agree about the whole narrative thing, I'm not one for detail. So since I'm just lazy like that (see, I'm doing it again) I just throw everything that's not in the narrative at the end in a big explanation. But, glad you liked the story.
BlistersOnMyFingers- Thanks for the awesome review!
Ima- These questions will be answered in due time…
Hinn-Raven- Heh, I'm still working on that as you'll see. It's a process. Although I got a plan mapped out and everything now.
The full moon's silver shine illuminated the earth below. The time was roughly midnight, but there was no way to tell for sure. Katara was resting her head silently on Appa's saddle as they slowly glided in search of a new hiding spot. She smiled silently, taking in the light breeze, the warm air, it was the perfect…
"Dude, all we've seen is trees. Is that all there is around here?" Katara frowned as her thoughts were cut short. She raised her head to see Beast Boy leaning over the edge peering at the shaded landscape.
"You should see the Air Temples. They're pretty cool, especially the Western Air Temple." Aang's eyes shone as he spoke about his former comrades.
"Can you keep it down?" Sokka spoke with an annoyed tone from his position in the saddle. "Some of us actually need to sleep."
"Please, continue with the explaining of this Air Temple." Starfire said. Aang found himself smiling as he discovered he was finally getting used to her strange way of speech.
"Well, the entire place is under a mountainside." Aang explained, keeping his hands on the reins as he guided Appa along. While Appa was a smart sky bison, and completely capable of taking care of himself as well as other members of the group, he didn't exactly have a map in front of him that sky bison could understand. "And, the only way to get around is to fly using your gliders. I'll have to take you there sometime. I bet you'd love it."
"Doesn't look like we're going to be finding any caves anytime soon. Maybe we should be looking for something else, like a waterfall in an enclosed space." Robin suggested to Aang as he examined the map again.
"We could always hide Appa under a lot of grass or something. He'd look like a hill with horns." Beast Boy chuckled at Aang's joke.
"You guys don't like to stay quiet for very long, do you?" Toph yawned as she woke up. She stretched her arms and raised herself into a sitting position. Although the saddle was occupied by six people with Aang sitting on Appa's neck, there was a surprising amount of space left for them to move about.
"You think this is loud? You should see Raven." Beast Boy laughed again. The empath rarely shouted or screamed. She was almost always in control of her emotions, or at least she seemed to be.
"You never really did explain who Raven was." Katara noted.
"Raven is... mysterious to say the least." Starfire said. "There is much we are not meant to understand about her."
"But she's one of our closest friends; we all live together back at the tower." Robin said.
"The tower? You all live in a tower?" Sokka asked. He couldn't imagine someone living in a tower, since the only ideas he could get was a thin cylindrical building.
"It's a giant T shaped building." Beast Boy elaborated. "I know it sounds weird, but it's actually pretty cool."
"Down there! Wow, Robin, you were right about the waterfall thing." Aang pointed down at a majestic waterfall surrounded by a small cliff with a narrow entrance. The waterfall itself spilled out into a small pool in the middle of the bowl shaped area. A thick, dense forest was both on top of the cliff and some trees were at the entrance.
"That looks safe enough; Besides, we're all probably getting pretty tired." Katara agreed.
"Anywhere is good as long as I can get some shut eye." Toph said.
"Oh, now you all start to get sleepy." Sokka's voice was practically dripping with sarcasm. Appa approached the ground slowly and landed by the glistening water. Aang began unloading their supplies after he was satisfied with their hiding spot for the night. They were a couple of miles away from a town, which wasn't all that far. They were protected on three sides by the rocks and the cliff. If something were to happen to Appa impairing his ability to fly, there was a source of water nearby. Firewood obviously wasn't a problem with an entire forest of trees at their feet. In short, it was much better than most of the locations they'd bunked at.
"Good night everybody." Aang said as they finally settled down into their separate tents.
"Good night." Sokka, Katara, Robin, and Toph said in unison. Beast Boy snored from inside his tent.
"Pleasant shlorvax." Starfire called from inside her tent. Sokka began to speak, but then thought better of it and went to sleep.
"We're going into to town to get some more supplies." Katara called as she grabbed a small bag filled with coins of varying colors. The sun shone brightly onto their faces making the lake seem to sparkle. Both Beast Boy and Aang found themselves floating lazily on the water to start off a hopefully relaxing day. Toph was demonstrating another earthbending move to Robin, so he could get an idea of how they fought. Katara had invited Starfire to come with her into town for the shopping trip, since it was better to never go anywhere alone.
"Just be back before sundown." Sokka shouted as he threw his shirt over so it landed by his tent. He jumped into the water and grinned. "We're staying for the night."
"We must make with the haste! I do not wish to waste precious time which could be used for the shopping." Starfire grabbed Katara's hand and led her off. Katara grinned in spite of herself, smiling at the girl's enthusiasm.
"Girl's day out. Hope they have fun." Sokka said with a preoccupied tone as he floated on his back. Momo glided over and landed on his stomach and purred.
"So… you raise your fist like this, and hold it out in front of you." Toph demonstrated as she held her fist out in front her. It was almost the perfect fighting stance, aside from the bottom half of her stance being off. "Then… you jab forward hard like your trying to crush the person in front of you. With earth bending you have to be firm."
Toph lashed out suddenly at the rock in front of her, and it was sent flying into the Cliffside where it shattered.
"Why didn't you go into town with Katara and Starfire?" Robin asked suddenly.
"I was going to, but we need to start training you guys too. Katara told me about your fight with the Dai Li below Ba Sing Se. Apparently you were good, but not exactly experienced in fighting elite earth benders. Without any bending of your own, you'll need to be more prepared to defend yourself." Toph explained. Robin nodded and they continued.
"Now if you ever meet another earth bending opponent you'll need to…"
Beast Boy rolled off the giant leaf he was floating on and dived into the depths below. When he was sure Aang wasn't looking he morphed into a fish. He relaxed in the form of the fish, happy to be able to use his powers again. Then he remembered to resurface to avoid looking suspicious.
The changeling looked over at Aang, who was still lying on his back with closed eyes. He grinned mischievously and ducked under the water again. He morphed into a flying fish, known for their high jumping ability and shot up into the air. He changed back and shouted, "Geronimo!" Aang's eyes shot open and he was met with the sight of a green blur hitting the water and a wave drenching both him and Sokka, who'd finally drifted over. The trio swam back up to the surface, and burst out laughing.
"That's a nice necklace." Katara held up a small… red necklace before putting it back onto the cart.
"Do you wish to purchase it?" Starfire asked as she held up two red tops in front of her.
"No, I don't. It looks nice and all but… I don't know." She sighed.
"Must everything here be the color of red?" Starfire asked again. She found the trip into town intriguing to say the least. Starfire had trouble adjusting to earth customs due to the fact that she was born on the planet Tamaran. Every day she was learning something new, or discovering another interesting invention.
"Well this is the Fire Nation." Katara remarked. "But it's not like that all over the world. You saw for yourself in the Earth Kingdom remarked everything seemed to be green."
"Then… in the Water Tribe everything is blue?" Starfire was quick to make the connection.
"Yeah. The Air Nomads really don't have much of a color aside from what they wear though. It can get kind of confusing." Katara stated.
"Every day I learn something new about the world in which we live. Coming here has been a wonderful experience." Starfire smiled.
"Alright, now it's my turn to start asking questions." Katara grinned. "First I wanted to know…"
"Alright, get back to your cells!" The shout of a guard emanated from somewhere on top of the walls. Raven sighed to herself as she was ushered along back into the main compound along with the hundreds of other prisoners. Over the course of about a month or so, she'd befriended another prisoner, Suki. Suki was part of an elite group of fighters, called the Kyoshi Warriors. Since she was their leader the Fire nation decided to make the Boiling Rock her permanent home. They'd become friends purely by accident; Suki had been one of the prisoners not just looking out for themselves, and she was also around Raven's age.
The prison compound itself was in the middle of a volcano. Inside the volcano was boiling lake, with the prison on top of an island. Nobody had ever escaped because they couldn't fly. There was no wood to build a boat, and aside from hijacking the gondola there was no getting out. Before the rush of the crowd carried her inside she took one final glance around the compound. Four metal walls surrounded the building. There seemed to be… one… two th-
"Move it!" A crack of a whip brought Raven back from her thoughts as pain seared through her arm. The force of the blow sent her crashing down from her feet and she rolled onto the ground. She raised her head and sent one glare at the guard who carried the discipline inducing weapon, and hoisted herself up off the ground and into the building.
The empath sat in her cell pondering her current position. How she had ended up there, what had started the madness. There was no regret inside her at all, only hope that her friends would find her… before she lost herself.
"We're back!" Katara called as they entered their makeshift camp. The sun was setting somewhere below the horizon, out of view of the motley group. Katara and Starfire both carried a basket of supplies in their arms.
"You're back!" Aang shouted from his position near the tents they'd erected.
"What did you get?" Toph asked. She and Robin were still working on the Boy Wonder's technique at facing earth benders, in preparation for the next battle with the Dai Li. Both had stopped to greet the returning shoppers.
"Dude, those don't look like vegetables." Beast Boy frowned as they unloaded the contents of the baskets onto the ground by the fire. Most of it was either huge chunks of meat, or some herbs for Katara to use for whatever she needed them for.
"That's because they're not." Katara grinned at his downcast expression. Aang groaned in the background.
"Alright, Robin and I have decided that we need to get back on track if we want to meet up with the invasion force in time." Sokka pushed his way into the circle around their food and with a map clutched in one hand. "We'll have to leave tomorrow morning, so we're gonna have to eat and then sleep."
"Tomorrow morning?" Beast Boy groaned.
"The rendezvous is pretty far from here. With three extra people for Appa to carry we'll have to leave earlier than we would." Sokka replied simply. Starfire and Beast Boy both glanced at Robin, who gave them a look that said 'wait one minute'.
After supper the group trudged off to their separate tents one after another, until only three were awake. The full moon had faded out of sight, and the sound of soft snoring emanated from Sokka's tent.
"Beast Boy, get in here!" Robin hissed from inside his tent. The changeling glanced around and slipped into the form of a mouse. He scurried inside Robin's tent to find Starfire already inside.
"Robin? Starfire? What's going on?" Beast Boy asked, his voice clouded with confusion. Robin moved his hand and in a second the tent was flooded with a dim light; a candle had been lighted.
"We need to plan our next move." Robin said quietly.
"Didn't you just explain our next move when Starfire and Katara came back?" Beast Boy asked again.
"I mean our next move. We still need to find Raven. We could easily head back to pick up Cyborg right now and then start our search again. We've only stayed with this group this long because we thought that since they brought us together, maybe they could help us find her." Robin continued until Starfire cut him off.
"I believe what Robin is trying to say is that perhaps it would be best if we continued our search for Raven without our new friends." Starfire finished gravely. She looked at the ground with a saddened expression on her face.
"We can't just abandon them after everything they've done for us! We're the Teen Titans. We help people!" Beast Boy exclaimed suddenly, a new light burning in his eyes. "While I think we should be looking for Raven, we also should try and help them. Besides, didn't you say time passes differently here?"
Robin closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "Two weeks. That's it. We'll continue on with this group here for two more weeks. If we don't find any clues on what happened to Raven, we're going to have to split up."
Beast Boy and Starfire both nodded in agreement. "That seems fair." Beast Boy eventually said.
Outside of the tent Toph scrambled back to her tent as she felt the titans' movement indicating that they were returning to their own tents. When she returned she felt surprised with herself; she felt a pang of sadness. It seemed like the two groups had been together since the beginning.
"Toph? What are you doing up?" Toph spun around and felt the earth.
"Sokka? I was just…" Toph trailed off. "I'm going to bed."
"Um… okay." Sokka replied drowsily. "Where'd we leave the drinking water again?" He yawned.
"Over there." Toph jabbed an arm out over in Appa's general direction and returned to her rock tent. Meanwhile, Beast Boy lay awake in his tent on the other side of camp. He rolled over in his sleep with a frown etched across his face. A cold breeze blew across the camp, and the changeling shivered in his dreams thinking of a girl named Terra.
Eh. Couldn't get the ending down. Will Terra be returning? Nope. Most of the time I spent typing this up was done in one night. The last two pages on the other hand… took me two weeks. Nothing much else to say because while I had a note that I was going to write to clear things up, I've forgotten what I wanted to say.
Unable to say when the next updates gonna be coming in, but it will be before the end of next February.